First Green's green thumb has it growing

Banking

Several things are clear these days about First Green Bank, the Central Florida bank organized several years ago around a save-the-environment credo.

First, whether or not you favor its cause, the Lake County-based community bank has become one of the fastest-growing financial institutions in the region. Deposits, loans and assets have increased at double-digit percentage rates in recent years. After only four years in business, it ended 2012 as the region's 14th-largest locally-based bank based on its share of the market's deposits — more than $172 million. Assets totaled $200 million, and its loans were worth $151 million.

Second, the bank is putting its money where its marketing is, having spent millions of dollars to build an energy-efficient headquarters that opened last year in Mount Dora. In December, the building was awarded the LEED Platinum certification, the highest rating given by the U.S. Green Building Council. The bank has also started a foundation that is providing thousands of dollars in grants to assist individuals and businesses that install alternative-energy systems.

Finally, First Green has consistently promoted discount loan rates for projects that include energy-efficient systems and other "green" features. Few customers have taken the bank up on that incentive — something bank officials hope will change in 2013.

Green loans pick up

There are already signs that is happening, according to Kenneth LaRoe, First Green's founder and chief executive.

First Green has issued more than $7 million in loans in the past couple of years through its eco-friendly incentive program, LaRoe said last week. The bank also offers solar-power-specific incentive loans at a fixed interest rate of 5.95 percent for 10 years, with 100 percent financing.

"It is catching on," he said. "We have done about five green home loans and are working on six grants through our foundation to anyone who installs solar power. I am greatly encouraged."

Generally speaking, First Green has built its business by conventional community-banking means: personal attention, access and customer service, LaRoe said. After expanding to Volusia County last year (in Ormond Beach), First Green opened its first branch in Orlando last month, on the corner of South Orange Avenue and Columbia Street.

The Orlando branch already has deposits of about $7 million and loans worth $2 million, according to LaRoe. It is run by Alan Rowe, a veteran Orlando banker and former president of the now-defunct First Commercial Bank of Florida, which failed in 2010 during the state's banking crisis.

Sights on Winter Park

LaRoe said he is confident First Green can compete with the city's established banks. Its environmental focus may have even more appeal in a diverse, urban area such as Orlando than in largely rural Lake County, he said.

Also on tap this year: a branch in Winter Park. LaRoe said the bank has identified a site and submitted a bid to acquire the land and expand its network.

But an even bigger goal lies ahead: "The big thing on our plate right now is raising capital," LaRoe said. "We are in the middle of a campaign to try to raise up to $20 million."

It would be the first major effort to raise capital since the bank announced its formation in early 2008, just as the U.S. financial crisis was unfolding. It eventually raised $10 million to launch the bank in February 2009.

Like other newer banks that formed amid the crisis, First Green avoided the "toxic" assets of bad real-estate loans that afflicted many other banks after the housing bubble burst.

It was also able to avoid business-loan defaults related to the Great Recession. To this day, the bank has no non-current loans on its books.